Tuesday, July 09, 2013

Over on the waterfront, San Francisco has turned over some of its loveliest vistas to Larry Ellison's Americas Cup and its sponsor for the prelims, the haute couture purveyor, Louis Vuitton. Get the picture from SF Mike.

Out here in one of San Francisco's lower rent districts, the Mission-Valencia corridor, there's a pushback building against intrusion by a more downscale, though certainly not cheap, cookie-cutter fashion emporium. About 25 percent of the store fronts on Valencia between 24th and 14th Streets are displaying this sign.

Naturally I was curious. I never heard of Jack Spade but fortunately, there is Google. This seems to be yet another hipster clothing store -- think $75 for what looks like a quite ordinary T-shirt.

The arrival of Jack Spade in the neighborhood is a symptom of the area's new status. You know you are in trouble when USAToday crows:

... today's Mission is heaving with solvent hipsters and the quirky shops which attract them. …

So long as the hipsters stay on Valencia, the influx works okay. The older shops see new customers drawn by the proliferation of new ethnic and locivore restaurants. (Isn't it amazing the mark-ups entrepreneurs can get on good peasant food?) If the hipster newcomers wander a block east to Mission, they may encounter some characters and scenes whose lives are a gritty challenge to theirs. But hey, most of us in the area came from somewhere else at some time.

If my research on the Jack Spade store that has evicted Adobe Books from its location on 16th had been limited to Google, I'd have just thought -- here comes another one. But the stores posting the signs led me to a more complicated story.

Apparently Jack Spade is formula retail -- a Liz Claiborne Inc. brand. San Francisco doesn't want to turn into a quaint shopping mall for national brands, so we have a law that is supposed to limit such incursions by subjecting chain stores to a public hearing process. But this Claiborne brand has exploited a quirk in how the law is written to avoid having to deal with the neighborhood. Hearings are only required when a chain has 10 or more stores in the US. Jack Spade has 10 domestic and 3 international locations -- so no planning process required. Uptown Almanac reports that Jack Spade has refused to meet with neighborhood merchants and organizations.

If you are bothered by the arrival of cookie-cutter retail in the 'hood, you can sign the local merchants' petition here.

UPDATE: Score one for existing neighborhood merchants. The tortuous city appeal process yielded a vote against Jack Spade and the Claiborne company gave up. For now.

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What's this blog about?

My musings on current events, current projects, current anxieties and current delights.

I started this under the Bush regime when any grain of sand thrown into the gears of the over-reaching imperial state seemed worthwhile.

I have worked to elect more and better Democrats -- and to hammer the shit out of them once we get them in office so they do the things their constituents want and need. It's a big job.

I have endured the dashed potential for a more transformational regime under Obama. The man has made himself an accomplice in the imperial crimes of his predecessor as well as committing his own. He has also almost certainly been the most progressive president most of us will live to see. I fear we'll look back on his years in office with mild gratitude for a respite from national leadership that was habitually stupid and vicious, as well as wrong.

Visitors here will find a lot of commentary on books I'm reading. I am very intentionally reading intensively offline these days. When it feels hard to find direction, it's time to learn something new.

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About Me

I'm a progressive political activist who runs trails and climbs mountains whenever any are available. I've had the privilege to work for justice in Central America (Nicaragua and El Salvador), in South Africa, in the fields of California with the United Farmworkers Union, and in the cities and schools of my own country. I'm a Christian of the Episcopalian flavor; we think and argue a lot. For work, I've done a bit of it all: run an old fashioned switch-board; remodeled buildings and poured concrete; edited and published periodicals, reports and books; and organized for electoral campaigns. I am currently an independent consultant to organizations seeking "help when you have to make a fight."